She knits, she crochets, she cooks and she swears like a sailor. She's a krafty bitch.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

I want to live in her world.....

Halle-freaking-lujah!

My daughter, who turned 18 barely a week ago, voted for the first time today. It's been a big week for her - turning legal, getting her first (and only I hope) tattoo, and voting in her first presidential election. And tonight, she and I, and my niece could barely contain ourselves watching Obama's acceptance speech on tv. Our phones lit up all nite with texts & tweets of celebration. I don't ever recall an election - even ones when I worked in newsrooms and could watch a dozen live cameras pn election night - where the voting public was so overjoyed by the results.233 years ago, we were just a bunch of revolutionaries. But our founding fathers and the genius of "we the people" struck a cord and launched what was to become the strongest, most innovative , most powerful nation on the planet. The concept of "we the people" was far more than the preamble to our constituion. It was, and is, the fundamental truth that all that is great about this country comes from our ability as individuals to unite together and accomplish the most amazing things. Well, we the people spoke tonite and we didn't whisper, we roared with a mandate to carry out a sea of change. And that change, it's not so much different that what our founding fathers sought out. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - things we've lost the last 8 years. We're going to get that back and in the process, we're going to make the world a safer, cleaner, more united place because this truly is our moment in history.There's only one spot of grey in tonight's celebration -- California's Prop 8. Earlier in the week, my daughter came to me with questions about different ballot measures, including 8. She was shocked to learn that same sex couples may lose the right to marry. She assumed in a free, democratic country where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundament, that any two adults who wanted to marry, could do so legally. She had no idea that same sex marriage was even an issue. In her world, race is not an issue, gender is not an issue, sexual preference is not an issue, and religion is not an issue. Looks like, I hope, in this new dawn of ours, we'll all be able to live in her world.I leave you with a picture of my daughter's new tattoo - it's the word "family" written in Arabic.